Love Song Requiem
by JustCatchMe24
Summary: Tom reflects on love and death. Post Christmas Special (series 3). Angst/ mentions dark themes.


**Love Song Requiem **

**A/N: Listen to Love Song Requiem by Trading Yesterday while reading and keep tissues ready!**

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The fire burned low, the only light in Tom's room. The house was silent, still finally, in the almost eerie way large places felt when everyone was asleep. Abandoned, lonely. Just like him, sitting in an armchair, his sleeping daughter in his arms.

Nanny had come by at 9, asking for Sybbie, but he had said he would keep her with him for the night. There was a cradle in his room, and she rarely awoke in the night these days. Tom could manage her. Nanny shook her head. It wasn't an _English_ practice certainly, for a man to spend so much time with his child. But she supposed with the poor mother gone, he was trying to be both mother and father to Sybbie.

The last embers flicked, and went out. Tom was enveloped in utter darkness. Still he did not move. It was the perfect night for ghosts to haunt, but Sybil would not come to him.

Sybbie shifted in his arms, a chubby hand kicking out of the warm cocoon her Da had wrapped her in. She wasn't a baby anymore - even today, she had started to crawl, and it broke Tom's heart to think of it. Slowly, tiredly, he stood up and from memory, navigated to the large bed he slept in alone. He felt for the sheets and pulling them back, carefully placed his daughter in the middle of the bed. One side he barricaded with thick pillows of the kind he had never slept on until he'd married Sybil. On the other, he pushed his own warm body, pulling the comforter over them both.

Tom turned to face Sybbie. He wasn't blind enough to pretend the pile of pillows on her other side was Sybil. He thought of earlier that day and began to sob.

He'd gotten used to being quiet. Not only with his tears but his grief. The English were a closed-off lot, and though he knew, every time someone in the house looked at him with that mix of pity and sorrow, that he was not the only one who missed Sybil, they rarely spoke of her. It was certainly less painful – to forget – but he seemed unable to – her face, her touch, her laugh etched on his mind and invading his dreams.

Tom thought of his conversation with Mrs. Hughes. She was right of course. He had felt incredibly awkward to play master of a house he had no claims to. It was hard enough to join the ranks of the very class he hated most, but to play the ridiculous charade that he was in any way superior to the people he'd eaten and worked with a few years ago, disgusted him. If he wasn't so unwilling to upset the tenuous peace he'd won here at Downton, Tom would have gladly maintained the old camaraderie with the folks downstairs.

When Edna had brought his behavior to his attention, he'd felt ashamed. He would always be a working-class lad from Dublin, and though he'd learned to control his reaction to it, he never thought a day would come when he'd be the one to perpetrate such an unequal class system. How he longed for Ireland! Things were easier there – more straightforward, and he didn't have to walk this unsteady line.

He had decided to take his chances with old Lady Grantham's ire, and had spent a few days more comfortable with the servants. But of course, Edna would have to spoil what happiness he'd managed to find, what small unequal balance he'd created. It was not the informal manner in which she addressed him that bothered. It was the touches, the glances, the hand clasps, the kiss.

Tom groaned out loud. He had been colossally stupid to allow it to happen. But he hadn't been that near a woman since Sybil, and Edna was attractive enough. And surely he shouldn't have just expected a strange girl to walk in on him and kiss him! He was a radical, but that even he could not fathom. Well, he'd learned his lesson, he supposed.

A surge of loneliness welled up in him, and he felt shaky. Tom turned towards his daughter and put a hand carefully on her chest. Her little heart beat comfortingly against his fingers, and Tom drew a breath that came out more like a gasp. It was so painful to live, and sometimes he just needed reminding of the small heart that tethered him to life.

Tom knew he spent an unusual amount of time with Sybbie, but she was the only one he had to love. Letters from home, and the sort of respect and acceptance he got from Sybil's family could not begin to fill the void Sybil's love had left. His love for her had been a constant companion for so many years, and he had grown used to being loved in return. It just felt unrequited, again, now, and in a way, it had been a brief respite to imagine Edna loved him.

Of course, she hadn't, and that was the problem. As low as it made him feel, Tom needed someone to love, and be loved by. As much as he hated himself for it, he was certainly able to find a woman attractive once in awhile. He thought his sister-in-law quite pretty. He thought cousin Rose charming. He could never hope to love the same way again – he was done with such emotion for ever. But companionship, and comfort, and yes, even the joys of being with a woman – he could, one day, perhaps, receive, without feeling wholly despicable.

Tom leaned forward and kissed his daughter's soft cheek. Sybbie's hand closed around a handful of his nightshirt. Tom let his eyes drift shut, and listened to the reassuring sound of his child's breathing. One day, perhaps, he'd find more happiness, but for now, he and his daughter would have to soldier on.

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A/N: Poor Tom! I can't even imagine the anguish he would have been going through post 3x05 - unable to go back to Ireland, stuck in a class system he despises, with people who aren't the easiest to get along with, without Sybil's love. JF did him the worst disservice by forcing him to stay on as an estate manager, it just goes against everything he's ever believed in. Also, the question in every S/T's shipper's heart - whether Tom deserves a second chance at love and life. I hated Edna, but writing this made me look forward to series 4, and hopefully a little more happiness in store for Tom!

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